Business

Monday August 17, 2009

S'pore based Jetstar wants to fly to more M'sian towns

By B.K. SIDHU


Singapore-based airline trying to get extra planes

KUALA LUMPUR: If Jetstar Asia gets more air planes this year it will like to fly to Ipoh, Sandakan and Tawau from Singapore, says chief executive officer Chong Phit Lian.

The request for more airplanes has been made from its parent, Jetstar Australia, and Qantas, which has ordered 63 new A320 with staggered deliveries.

But for now, Jetstar Asia has to contend with growth from its existing business even though it has been increasing its Singapore-to-Penang flights from once daily to twice last week.

“We are evaluating other points as the major cities are currently being served. Our constraint is aircraft. If we can lease more we would like to fly to more places,’’ she told StarBiz recently.

Besides the three destinations in Malaysia, the airline also hopes to fly to Guanzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu in China and Chennai and Mumbai in India.

Next year it plans to fly to Tokyo.

Ipoh will be possible if the airport can accommodate an A320, Chong said.

Jetstar Asia is a Singapore-based airline that is 49% owned by Australia’s Qantas and the remaining 51% is still held by Dennis Khoo, a long-time partner of Qantas in this region. Temasek Holdings has exited from Jetstar Asia since April this year. Jetstar Asia owns 100% of Valuair. Chong is also CEO of Valuair.

Chong Phit Lan ... ‘A lot of people in the corporate world think they cannot make changes to their tickets once they have purchased.’

The airline started off with two daily flights to KL International Airport early this year and today offers connectivity to Penang, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

It has 19 weekly flights to KLIA, 14 to Penang, four to Kota Kinabalu and a daily service to Kuching.

Beginning August this year the airline began offering interlining for passengers from and to Qantas, Jetstar Australia and Jetstar Pacific. The latter two airlines are units of Qantas.

The new arrangement with Qantas and Jetstar Australia and Pacific provides a seamless ticketing offering for airline customers on all of Jetstar Asia’s markets.

The new interline agreement with Qantas may offer London or Amsterdam-based customers the ability to purchase itineraries to all Jetstar Asia markets on its existing flight network and it also allows Jetstar’s customers in South East Asia to seamlessly connect with Qantas’ global network to and out of Singapore or Malaysia.

“The next thing we are working on is to provide interlining for Oneworld members. Qantas is a member of Oneworld and we would like to be the connecting point for Oneworld members,’’ Chong said, adding that “we expect to grow passengers with our interlining arrangements.”

The airline is excited over the prospects of interlining and hopes the partnership will help it carry more passengers than the 1.8 million it carries yearly. It also enjoys an average load factor of about 80% system-wide despite the A(H1N1) influenza scare currently.

“The industry faces a lot of challenges but we are very nimble and quick to react and that helps in our business,’’ she said.

She said there was an increasing number of corporate travellers flying with Jetstar and in Singapore it was the airline for 400 companies, including some multinationals, that used the airline for travel regularly.

“A lot of people in the corporate world think they cannot make changes to their tickets once they have purchased but we allow for first-time change for free and the next we charge a nominal sum,’’ she said.

She said fares had nosedived from strong competition but might go up slightly with the festive season.

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